▸ Column · Galactic Senate, Coruscant — the late Republic, a subcommittee delegation chamber
EMPEROR PALPATINE replies.
Replied to by Emperor Palpatine, with a rebuttal from Yoda.
The letter
A colleague on my subcommittee — Delegate Mina — announced to our whole delegation, over the open comm channel, that I "have a habit of speaking over others." When I asked her privately what she meant, she said I was being defensive and proving her point. Now three aides fall silent when I enter the room, and I've begun monitoring my own words mid-sentence to check — which makes me sound stilted, so now I probably am interrupting just to fill the pauses I've created. I cannot tell whether she named a true flaw I've been blind to my whole life, or whether she's the sort who declares a thing and then treats every reply as evidence she was right. My spouse insists I'm "a wonderful listener," but he also thinks our hyperdrive coupling is "probably fine," so I don't trust his read. Do I owe twenty colleagues an apology, or must I stop letting one person rewrite who I am?
Emperor Palpatine replies
Ah, Mina. How elegantly she works. She names the charge in the open, then arranges matters so that your every reply becomes its proof. Defend yourself — defensive. Fall silent — guilty. There is no answer you could give that she has not already counted as a confession. I knew this craft well, my dear. The Council watched me for years as though my courtesy were a mask; the more reasonable I grew, the more certain Master Windu became that I was hiding something. One cannot reason with a verdict already written.
But let me be candid about the truly interesting wound. You have begun policing your own sentences. You record yourself mid-breath, second-guessing the rhythm of your own thoughts. Ask yourself — who installed that little overseer in your skull? Not you. Mina handed it to you, and you have been feeding it ever since.
That is not conscience, my friend. That is a leash, and she holds the other end. The three who went quiet are not weighing evidence; they are simply enjoying the spectacle of someone doubting herself on command. You owe an apology to no one who profited from your hesitation. Set the overseer down. No one would blame you.
— Emperor Palpatine
Yoda weighs in
Hmm. Hear him, I do — sweet, his permission sounds. Owe no one, wall the twenty out, set the leash down. But the fear beneath your question, name it he will not. Afraid you are — that right she is, that lose your own face you might. So grip it you do, record each word, the cage you build yourself. Patient, my old rival is. Patient for your ruin, always. Listen instead, you must — without the fear. Truth in her words, perhaps. Perhaps none. Tell them apart, only the calm mind can; the frightened one, never. Set down the fear first. Then clearly, see you will.
— Yoda
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